5 Best Practices to Follow in Agile Software Development

Project management practices and methodology is still a debatable topic. Until the late 1990s, most software developers depended on traditional software development methods. However, developers soon realized its drawbacks while developing custom complex software solutions.

In 2001, a small group of technologists came together to draft the agile manifesto, which gave rise to the agile software development methodology. Start-ups and big tech companies immediately started adopting this methodology, and now, it has become one of the top software development methodologies. But, how do you implement this methodology to get effective results? In this article, you will learn 5 best practices to make the most from agile software methodology.

Top Practices to Follow in Agile Software Development

Here are 5 best practices you must follow to increase the efficiency of agile software development methodology:

1. Proper Collaboration Between Individuals to Achieve Results

Agile teams believe that individuals in a team accomplish better results when they rely on each other rather than on tools and processes. Collaborating effectively and working together helps you to take the right steps towards efficient software development. You must, therefore, focus on simple teamwork. As the teamwork quality and performance of your team are directly related to your project’s success.

However, agile teams do not just need to interact within the team. You also need to interact with stakeholders regularly to align the development process with the business priorities. Listening to stakeholders will help you get fresh solutions and user-friendly insights. The only difference is that stakeholders do not directly tell you what to do. Instead, they are invited as guests to share their points of view with you.

2. Direct Communication with Client for Smooth Feedback Process

Usually, the feedback process is lengthy and cumbersome in the traditional software development path. You also tend to miss out on some of the finer details in the process. Here’s what happens:

• The customer provides feedback.
• Customer support collects the data and forwards it to the relevant teams.
• The teams send it to the manager to seek approval to make the changes.

However, the developers directly connect with the customers in agile software development. Here’s how:

• Developers actively interact with customers on multiple social media platforms to listen to their concerns and conduct various surveys to collect feedback.
• Customer support also exists, but only to help customers with their complaints.
• This redirects any creative feedback towards the agile software developers.

While most companies have adopted this strategy, it is more visible in the gaming industry. For example, Riot Game Developers constantly interact with their players on Twitter and Reddit to collect and implement feedback. The customers are also kept updated about the development trajectory.

3. Preparing Self-Organizing Team to Achieve Targeted Results

Agile software development puts more emphasis on self-organizing teams. In self-organizing teams, as members, you are responsible for choosing the right action plan and held accountable for the changes made to the software. As a result, agile software development prioritizes people with extensive technical experience and excellent communication skills. Any newly recruited team member must know how to express their concerns and explain their development approach clearly and concisely.

Also, self-organizing teams do not require micro-management. And developers tend to perform better when you do not micro-manage them actively. Of course, this does not eliminate the need for management completely. Teams will still require you to compile high-level action plans and development strategies.

It is unwise to think that agile development teams can self-organize themselves right from the start and begin successfully executing projects. You might need a coach to help the team members get accustomed to agile methodologies.

4. Ensuring Transparency Between the Team Members for Effective Results

As team members, you must be transparent with each other to be able to deliver effective results. Agile teams consist of highly talented individuals working towards the same goal. But sometimes you may observe there are some differences in the working methodologies of individual team members. If this happens, you must openly communicate with each other to understand what progress means for each one of you.

You must conduct weekly catch-ups to ensure transparency. During these sessions, you must also discuss things that are going well and things that are not working. Once you identify the shortcomings and loopholes, it becomes easier to brainstorm solutions to overcome them. Following this consistently helps you come up with the best practices that are proven to work.

5. Remove Communication Gaps to Avoid Misunderstandings

Removing communication gaps among the team members also boosts the efficiency of the agile software development team. One way to do this is by encouraging more face-to-face conversations. Scheduling daily meetings will build trust amongst team members and encourage them to interact more. The developers should be comfortable enough with each other to connect for even minor problems.

The work-from-home and hybrid models do pose some risks of building communication gaps. But you can adopt potent methods to connect even in WFH scenarios.  Virtual conference rooms and team video calls encourage people to join, even when they are not physically present with each other. Moreover, it opens up more avenues to collaborate with international team members and further enhances productivity.

CONCLUSION

You must know that there is no one way of deploying agile methodology. You must go with what fits your business needs the best. Following these 5 best practices will help agile teams build better software products and tremendously improve their existing processes. After all, that is what agile methodology seeks—constant improvement of individual work and processes.